Coming out of the loser's bracket is a daunting enough task for any baseball team with aspirations of post season play. For the Belmont Abbey Crusaders the task was doubly difficult as they took on the number one team in the Division II landscape. Cody Stull would battle for 8+ innings, but the Mount Olive Trojans would eliminate the Crusaders from the 2013 Conference Carolinas Baseball Tournament by a 6-3 score. The Crusaders will now wrap up the regular season against Armstrong Atlantic, with a 3 game series beginning Friday evening.

For the Trojans, Jermaine Berry would launch a solo home run to right centerfield giving Mount Olive a 1-0 lead in the second. The lead would move to 2-0 as Wil Bynum singled home Geno Escalante. The Trojans would expand the lead to 5-0 in the fourth as Bryan Dunlavey would single home Escalante for a second time, followed by Zac Orrison's two run single just beyond the outstretched glove of Adam Venditti. With Alex Regan cruising through the first three innings, the climb through the loser's bracket would only escalate.

However, John Pilla would drive a solo shot to straightaway left field putting the Crusaders on the board and stirring the Abbey faithful that made the trip to Burlington for the conference tournament. Venditti would then echo the emotion as he blasted a Regan offering deep beyond the wall in left field. The back to back home runs were a first for the Crusaders in 2013, and were the first home runs hit by both Venditti and Pilla.

In the sixth, Pilla was Johnny-on-the-spot once again as he hit a deep fly ball into the left centerfield gap just out of the reach of Dunlavey. The baseball bounded back into the field of play yielding Pilla a triple, his third hit of the game. Venditti would follow up with a deep fly ball to right, allowing Pilla to score on the sacrifice fly. The single tally would mark the end of the Crusaders offensive output.

Mount Olive would get an insurance run in the ninth as Daniel Oliver hit his 7th homerun of the year just inside the left field foul pole. Chris Orphanos would relieve Regan after seven innings to nail down his 2nd save of the season. Regan's win moved his record to 12-1 on the year. The loss for Stull moved his record to 6-4 in the 2013 campaign.

Pilla was the lone Crusader's hitter to have a multi-hit day. The Scarsdale, New York junior would total four hits on the day and fell a double shy of hitting for the cycle. For information on the Crusaders final weekend series in Savannah, log on to www.abbeyathletics.com. The Abbey Sports Network will be live from Zaxby's in Gastonia from 5-6 pm, broadcasting on WGNC 1450am and www.wgnc.net. The Abbey Sports Network will also air a special year in review Tuesday night live from Zaxby's at 6 pm on the same Abbey Sports Network stations.

Follow the Crusaders on Twitter:@abbeyathletics, #raisethered.

Yard Markers

Jagged Little Pilla - With a season high four hits, the Empire state native bumped his average to .378, good for tops on the team.

Very, Very, Venditti - The 4th inning solo homer was Venditti's first of the year.

Tomorrow's Schedule - In the 3rd day of the Conference Carolinas Baseball tournament, Mount Olive will face King University at 11 am, followed by an elimination game as Coker will battle Erskine. The 7:00 game will be a match up featuring the winner of Coker/Erskine vs. the loser of Mount Olive/King. The two remaining teams will vie for the championship on Sunday at 1 pm. The tournament can be seen in its entirety at www.conferencecarolinas.com.